The
full text of the new, supposedly improved "assault weapon" ban
proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein last week is now
available for your perusal. The 122-page bill consists mostly of
Appendix A, which takes up 95 pages and lists 2,258 "Firearms
Exempted by the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013." As I
said on Friday, this list is redundant at best, since any gun
that is not specifically named as an "assault weapon" and does not
meet the more general definitions is not supposed to be covered by
the law, whether or not it is explicitly "exempted." It seems the
main point of Appendix A is to impress us with Feinstein's
lenience. Look, she specifically allows 14 times as many gun models
as she specifically prohibits!

As for the list of 157 guns that are banned by name, it is much
longer than the list in the federal
"assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004 (which Feinstein also
sponsored), and its terms are broader. While the expired ban
covered "copies or duplicates" of the 18 named firearms, the new
one covers "copies, duplicates, variants, or altered
facsimiles"—language that seems designed to keep lawyers busy. The
references to "variants" and "altered facsimiles" suggest that a
gun can be deemed an "assault weapon" even if it is not listed and
does not have any forbidden "military-style characteristics."
Maybe that's one reason Feinstein tries to reassure gun owners with
her lengthy list of exempted firearms.

A story in Friday's New York Timesclaims Feinstein's
bill would "ban certain characteristics of guns that make them more
lethal." By describing the bill that way, reporter Jennifer
Steinhauer endorses Feinstein's fraudulent premise that "assault
weapons" are especially suited to mass murder or other kinds
of gun crime. Here are the
characteristics that, according to Feinstein, turn a
semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine into an "assault
weapon": a pistol grip or forward grip, a grenade launcher or
rocket launcher, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel, or a folding,
telescoping, or detachable stock. How exactly do these features—a
threaded barrel, say, or a grenade launcher without (already
banned) grenades—make a gun "more lethal"? They don't, which is why
opponents of "assault weapon" bans object to such arbitrary,
appearance-based distinctions. Some people at the
Times—notably, criminal justice reporter Erica
Goode—understand this
point. If Steinhauer had read and digested Goode's January 17
front-page story about the contentiousness of the very term
assault weapon, she could have avoided the error (assuming
that's what it was) of taking sides in an ostensibly evenhanded
news story about Feinstein's bill.

New York Times reporters Thomas Kaplan and Danny
Hakim made
a similar mistake in a January 15 story about New York's new,
stricter "assault weapon" ban, saying it would "bar semiautomatic
weapons that have a single additional feature to increase their
deadliness." Notably, that claim was excised from the
online version of the story, which I took to be a sign that at
least one editor at the Times recognizes the
tendentiousness of such seemingly neutral descriptions. Maybe if
there had been a correction at the bottom of the story
acknowledging the change Steinhauer would not have repeated Kaplan
and Hakim's error.

Steinhauer also claims Feinstein's bill includes "more explicit
language on the types of features on banned weapons" than the old
ban did. That's not true either. Feinstein fiddled with the list of
suspect features (dropping bayonet mounts, for example), and she
decided that one, rather than two, was enough to qualify a gun as
an "assault weapon." The latter change made the ban
broader, but it did not make it more "explicit," let alone
"make it far more respectful of firearms for recreation uses," as a
former Feinstein aide quoted by Steinhauer asserts.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist.

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.

Feinstein is the type who would rather see a kid get mauled to
death by pit bulls than see a civilian shoot the dogs to save the
kid. I'm sure she agrees with the bullshit charges being levied
against the guy in DC who did just that.

Yeah, come to think of it, I've never heard of him going to Camp
David. He seems to prefer Hawaii or the Riviera for vacay. He's a
cultured cosmopolitan man of the world, you can't expect him to
holiday at a glorified Boy Scout camp.

Progressives like to talk about how they want to defend minority
rights. Yet the last line of defense for minority rights is firearm
rights. If a majority group wants to take the rights from a
minority group and that minority group is armed, it's awfully hard
to do. What progressives really want is a government monopoly on
the protection of minority rights, an idea which only works so long
as you assume that the government will never be the one trying to
take those rights away.

Given the existence of Stalinism, Nazism, the Khmer Rouge, Jim
Crow Laws, slavery, the War on Drugs, Darfur and millions of other
examples I could name, this assumption is clearly wrong. This is
exhibit 4,000,000 as to why progressives are stupid.

Given the existence of Stalinism, Nazism, the Khmer Rouge,
Jim Crow Laws, slavery, the War on Drugs, Darfur and millions of
other examples I could name, this assumption is clearly
wrong.

Remember, we're the crazy ones for refusing to believe that none
of those things could ever happen again in this country.

But what really gets to me is the condescending attitude they
have about it. They'll be like "Oh, you think you and your puny AR
can take out the US military?"

These fuckers welcome and embrace the fact that the government
has a standing army that could subjugate its citizens if it wanted
to. I think at its heart it goes back to their entrenched belief
that we owe our allegiance to the state because the state has been
so gracious as to grant us some measure of liberty.

That whole 'oh, you think you and your puny AR can take out the
US military?' argument is also a total misreading of history. Most
fascist and communist groups start out as armed thugs who gain
power through coercion and threats of violence. That happened with
the Nazis, the Bolsheviks and it's happening in Greece with the
Golden Dawn.

Even if we couldn't fight the US military after a regime
consolidated power, I'd love to see a group of Golden Dawn style
thugs try and gain power in America. In Greece they've had no
problem because their thuggery and immigrant bashing hasn't met
with meaningful resistance. In America, emergency rooms would be
filled with Golden Dawn members the moment they tried any of
that.

I don't think the majority of the troops in that standing army
are going to fight too hard for the very politicians that
constantly denigrate it. They would also be fighting against
they're very own mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and
against the constitution they've sworn to defend.

"But what really gets to me is the condescending attitude they
have about it. They'll be like 'Oh, you think you and your puny AR
can take out the US military?'"

It's not condescension. It's the genuine belief that those
stupid mouth breathers in the military are mindless automatons,
remorseless killing machines under the control of 'the good people'
- in government. Hippies genuinely believe that a) the state will
never turn on them - now that team Red is in office - and b) not
having a personal weapon is fine cuz they've got an army of hired
killers on deck to smackdown the hillbillies if they get out of
line.

Well, don't get me wrong, I don't intend to play the devil's
advocate too well here. Didn't the Whiskey Rebellion do exactly
that? A bunch of "hillbilly" farmers and vets were pissed about new
laws, and the militia was more than happy to get them to back
down?

I really have to wonder how many of our current soldiers, vets
and cops would really balk at the chance to shoot at hillbilly
insurgents.

"Remember, we're the crazy ones for refusing to believe that
none of those things could ever happen again in this country."

And these same fuckers who call us crazy for that would have us
believe that we are inches from some terrible tyranny if we don't
all line up and vote for their guy for president. There really
isn't even any attempt at consistency.

Don't expect this argument to ever be used in mainstream
political discourse though, because the Reactionary Conservative
Retard Fucks who run the NRA and "represent" gun rights would be
the last ones to make an argument that involves minorities' right
to self defense, even if it helps their own case.

^This is why the Republicans are the stupid party. I've actually
convinced liberal friends of mine that government subsidized birth
control programs are bad because all you've really done is replaced
the 'patriarchy' of husbands and fathers that feminists were
supposedly fighting against with the patriarchy of the
government.

You need to tailor your arguments to the people you're trying to
convince, and the Republicans are too stupid to know how to do
that.

Problem is, this doesn't involve any tailoring, this is a
completely legitimate argument in both a historical context and a
practical one. I'm sure all they all remember the violent Rodney
King riots, and how "all dem violent niggas threatened peaceful
white business owners", but completely overlook the fact that
Korean Business owners defended their own businesses from rioters
with Kalashnikovs and AR-15s, simply because the government refused
to provide them with any security. Conservatives always talk about
government not intruding in people's lives and individual rights,
but what they are really talking about is government not intruding
in THEIR lives and the rights they care about being protected,
thus, they aren't ideologically inconsistent per say, they are just
fucking selfish.

I'm a foreigner, but to John, i'm not a troll or anything, i
just lurk some NRA affiliated forums and it does seem there is an
over represntation of you know... White.. Middle Class.. Males. I
guess i don't really know gun culture in the USA that well though,
over here you are more likely to see a gun club member be a card
carrying Labour voter, the last prime minister, who was Labour, was
also a gun club member.

I didn't say that, but the fact is they will overlook stories
like this, or the Black Panthers being advocates of self
defense.... it's kind of self defeating. The Democrats seem to be
the kings of rhetoric.

I guess, this is just what i've been exposed to about american
gun culture, it's vastly different, and significantly smaller, down
under. Most of the times i've heard the Korean Gun owners story, or
references to the racist origins of gun control, it's come from
Libertarians, not conservatives.

Most of the times i've heard the Korean Gun owners story, or
references to the racist origins of gun control, it's come from
Libertarians, not conservatives.

That's because our conservative set here in the States is a hair
on the dumb side, but it's not entirely their fault. Politics has
become two different brands of fucks who worship the ability of the
state to "perfect" man (as they understand the idea of perfection)
and sell it to the squishy minded masses through emotional appeals
and 30 second ads.

Libertarians show up with some historical analysis and rational
arguments, and are promptly shown the door as not being adults or
serious.

I guess, this is just what i've been exposed to about
american gun culture, it's vastly different, and significantly
smaller, down under. Most of the times i've heard the Korean Gun
owners story, or references to the racist origins of gun control,
it's come from Libertarians, not conservatives.

Pat Buchanan, who is pretty far from being a libertarian,
famously originated the Korean shop owners meme in a speech at the
1992 GOP convention.

Forgive me for being skeptical of the veracity of your claims of
Aussie nationality, but it's kind of bizarre that you have so
little exposure to the American gun policy debates that you
wouldn't be aware of the shop owners story, but are able to
distinguish between libertarian gun rights advocates and
conservative ones.

But anyway, it's just you made a statement about the NRA and NRA
members that's just flat out wrong. The NRA is absolutely not
racist in any way, shape, or form. One of the RKBA community's main
points of discussion is bringing up the racist history of gun
control, and how it has been used from the start to deprive
minorities of their right to self defense.

Basically, anything the mainstream media says about the NRA is
at best inaccurate and at worst an outright distortion. That goes
double for foreign media. From what I've seen in foreign newspapers
and other media outlets, the NRA is portrayed extremely
negatively.

That wasn't the first thought to come to mind, but...the Aussie
gun laws of the last ~20 years have been a mixed bag at best,
success wise. Those handgun/semi-auto bans never really lived up to
all of those pie-in-the sky promises made by those politicians?
This is where my skepticism here in the U.S. comes from.

I'm afraid that I find the problem with my Australian and
Canadian friends and acquaintances is that the think that because
they get exposed to a lot of media coverage of American politics
and current events they are in a position to actually
understand American politics.

When I was living in Australia, I got the impression that
Australians believe that liberal Democrats are far more popular in
the US than they actually are. The myth that FDR was universally
beloved by Americans in universally accepted in Australia.

There is definitely a bias in Australian media in how we portray
foreign politics, especially on the government owned SBS and ABC.
Recently i was watching them refer to the new Austerity measure in
Greece, as "forcing austerity" and removing their "Basic
Entitlements", and also an over blown portrayal of Golden Dawn as
the right-wing of Greece, forgetting the fact that they are a tiny
minority in Parliament... So i get most of my news from the
internet... maybe that's even more biased at times.

"He" is most likely our old pal Mary. 34lbs was pushing
some bordlerline Godeskite tendencies yesterday.

It's rare for my to agree with Tulpa, but I'm with him on this.
I don't know if he's a Mary sock, but I seriously doubt he is what
he claims to be.

The very fact that he called out a "Mary sock" and knew
exactly the characteristics they exhibit and knew the
names of a couple of our other resident trolls (namely Spaces and
Shriek) after having been commenting on the board for less than a
day is just too damned strange.

Me back... No, i have been reading the comments section for
longer than i've been posting and basically i've been aware of T o
n y and You Know My Name, also, YKMN has a youtube channel that is
basically devoted to mocking the posters in this forum,
KizoneKaprow, immediately after posting on this page he left a
comment on my youtube page about quoting me, my youtube page name
is the same as the name for this board. http://www.youtube.com/user/kizonekaprow,
visit... if you dare.

If i sound a little lefty sometimes that's just the way i was
raised...

"How exactly does a pistol grip or a flash suppressor make a
weapon more deadly?"

Well,...for one thing, bullets can smell fear, so if those
attachments increase your fear level over those others merely
shitting themselves in fear for their lives, the bullets will be
more emboldened to do much more damage, and seek you out above all
others. Haven’t you been paying attention to the pundits
your intellectual superiors?

It's just ignorance, basically. They think the flash suppressor
actually hides the flash, instead of simply redirecting gasses out
to the side.

I've also heard them state that a pistol grip makes it easier to
fire from the hip, as if that were a super effective way to fire a
gun. They're basically dumbasses who base their gun knowledge on
movies like Rambo. Personally, if I were being shot at, I'd
definitely want the fucker to be shooting from the hip, because he
is far less likely to score a hit that way.

Doesn't a pistol grip make the trigger pull more comfortable
and natural

To a great extent it depends on when you grew up. If you learned
to shoot with an M-1 Garand or M-14 you'll probably be comfortable
with a straight grip. If you learned with an M-16 or M-4, a pistol
grip.

There are some slight advantages to each system ("shooting from
the hip" is harder with a pistol grip) but It's pretty
much personal preference.

"To a great extent it depends on when you grew up. If you
learned to shoot with an M-1 Garand or M-14 you'll probably be
comfortable with a straight grip. If you learned with an M-16 or
M-4, a pistol grip."

^This

I like the straight grip much better. Hate the pistol one. I
could learn, but why try? The ARs have to be babied. SKSs just keep
cranking out slugs no matter what you do to them.

I've not found that to be the case. I routinley fire hundreds of
rounds through a pretty much dry DI AR without a failure. I think
this is because I only run Pmags and NHMTG. With well made modern
autos, magazines seem to be the typical source of any problems.

I really hate that 'fire from the hip' bullshit. It's so
divorced from reality that it'd be funny if it weren't taken so
seriously.

I've never heard that from an actual human being, only from the
illogically designed congrressbots and mediabots that haven't quite
passed the turing test. If a person actually said that shit to me,
I'd kidnap them, take them to the range, duct tape an ar15 to their
hip, and run around them daring them to free themselves. Then we'd
go to Applebee's and have a good laugh over it later on.

Those features, along with a barrel shroud, may help with
accuracy. Though a skilled shooter doesn't need them, and the
classic mass shooter isn't concerned with accuracy either since
they're just spraying bullets into a crowd.

If grenades, rockets, and silencers were easily obtainable
through legal means, the threaded barrels and grenade launchers
would certainly increase the utility for mass murderers. But, they
aren't.

Well, if it's Holmes or Loughner shooting a bunch of people in
one place, it probably wouldn't help them at all. In the case of
Columbine or VT, it could allow the shooter to delay a response
from other parts of the building since it would be harder to tell
where the shooter was.

In any case, to legally obtain a silencer you have to go through
a fairly arduous process, so it's unlikely that a mars murderer
would be able to get one without breaking the law.

I don't know the laws on Mars, bu here on Earth it is, as you
say, very difficult to purchase a suppressor.

Thing is, on a gun worth using to commit mass murder, a silencer
wouldn't have the amount of suppression needed to keep the act
quiet unless the assailant was using sub-sonic rounds. In a 'trying
to shoot people running away' situation sub-sonic 9mm (the only
round that would have a respectable quiet/lethal ratio)the survival
rate would be high enough to discount the advantages of a quieter
round; that is, if you accept that a suppressed 9mm wouldn't be
heard be everybody in a building (it would).

And you need to either set up a legal trust to own your new
suppressor, or have the local chief law enforcement officer sign
off on your purchase. That is if you don't live in a state where
NFA items are completely illegal.

You do realize that the fact that said mass murderer commits
mass murder...it means that he already is breaking the law. Not to
mention, they can just do what Adam Lanza did and steal from a
lawful owner of such a 'restricted' device.

Which is why a "gun control" measure I would support -- if the
enforcement kinks could be worked out -- would be a secure storage
requirement for high-energy semiauto weapons (above 1600 J or so of
muzzle energy) whenever the firearm is not in the possession or
immediate control of the owner. And said secure storage would have
to be inaccessible to anyone who had not passed a NICS check.

While I think people should have the right to own such firearms,
they should not be leaving them lying around waiting to be stolen.
I know people who do this because they think it allows them to
respond to a threat faster.

A 2-liter bottle works pretty well on 45ACP (sub-sonic) as well.
If you want it to be even more effective and last a few rounds
longer fill it with styrofoam shipping particles and put a screen
towards the firearm end of it to keep blowback from filling your
barrel with styrofoam.

In a recent LEO conference the presenter noted that typical mass
killers shoot off a couple of rounds first, to generate panic and
get people fleeing. He said it was easier psychologically for them
to shoot someone fleeing than "in cold blood."

Not really. A suppressor only really helps when shooting at
night, as it keeps the shooter from being blinded. During the day,
it's a non-issue, and so far all mass shootings have been done in
daylight.

A pistol grip is an ergonomic feature, that really doesn't help
with accuracy at all. It might make the shooter's wrist a little
less tired if they're shooing all day, but that's it.

The barrel shroud has absolutely nothing to do with accuracy.
It's there to keep the user from burning themselves on a hot
barrel. That's it.

yes, I meant in general terms, there are situations in which
they could be useful for the shooter. Like Ted says, one of the
shootings in particular would have made a flash suppressor helpful
for accuracy purposes.. not that Holmes really had to worry about
accuracy, he was just trying to kill a bunch of people in a crowded
space.

But the key to precision is the gun moving out of its original
position as much as possible. If you can keep the muzzle from
flying all over the place, or at least have it move predictably,
then you can greatly improve precision.

That's why, if you wanna shoot tiny groups you'll basically have
the gun strapped down to the table as much as possible.

When shooting a moving, human sized targets at a couple of
meters away, a flash suppressor isn't going to help in any
negligible way.

One other thing to understand - military spec ammunition has
small amounts of flash retardant in ths powder charge which is
designed in conjunction with the flash suppressor to reduce the
flash signature. No commercial ammunition uses these retardants so
the resultant flash from civilian ammo is significantly larger.

However, it is unlikely that a techincal detail so huge as this
would either fit into nor make any impact on the brain of a
politician.

I love how often I hear a statement like, "Feinstein proposed a
new law to reduce gun violence." Sorry, but the assumption in that
statement—that a law that targets certain kinds of guns based
on their appearance and only in the possession of lawful
owners—will have any statistically significant effect on gun
violence is simply not in evidence.

And I think if you talk privately to Democrats and
Republicans, particularly those who have been around for a while,
they long for the days when they could socialize and introduce
bipartisan legislation and feel productive. So I don't think the
issue is whether or not there are people of goodwill in either
party that want to get something done. I think what we really have
to do is change some of the incentive structures so that people
feel liberated to pursue some common ground.

Oh jesus, we wouldn't want our paid representatives not to go to
Washington and have a good time; heaven forbid they stand pat
representing the interests of their constituents. Oh, how they long
for the days when Daniel Patrick Moynihan would grease up his balls
and slide around the halls of the White House whilst everybody
laughed in merriment!

And I think if you talk privately to Democrats and
Republicans, particularly those who have been around for a while,
they long for the days when they could socialize and introduce
bipartisan legislation and feel productive.

It's amazing how nostalgia consistently colors over whatever
misery you lived through during that time period.

"Long for the days when they could socialize and introduce
bipartisan legislation"? Is he fucking nuts? When that kind of
attitude existed, IF it ever existed, it was due to Congress being
run by generations who WEREN'T the fucking spoiled-ass rotten Baby
Boomers and neurotic Gen-Xers. If Congress is dysfunctional and
worthless, it's because the American people WANTED it that way
by voting in people who saw ANY compromise as
weakness.

If Obama and Americans in general think Congress can't get
anything done, they need to look in the fucking mirror, not blaming
the people whom they put in charge.

Hey, I personally love it when legislators refuse to compromise
and not a thing gets done. When I hear that law makers are working
together on bipartisan legislation, I put the cast-iron underpants
on 'cause there is gonna be a rapin'.

"When I hear that law makers are working together on bipartisan
legislation, I put the cast-iron underpants on 'cause there is
gonna be a rapin'."

THIS^

The code word "bipartisan" is used to throw the public off the
trail, to get people to assume a compromise has been established,
and forget about it, then when no one is looking anymore...they
quietly divvy up the spoils. The public rarely figures that out
until its long past too late...if ever.

And I think if you talk privately to Democrats and
Republicans, particularly those who have been around for a while,
they long for the days when they could socialize and introduce
bipartisan legislation and feel productive.

This is why I would never make it in Congress. I would spend two
whole years on the floor of the House, seizing as much speaking
time as possible, airing as much of the government's dirty laundry
out on the Congressional record as possible. All of those "Top
Secret" documents? It's not a secret if everybody knows about
it.

Even his sycophants are emboldened enough to now openly admit
that he's an angry leftist (though most of Reason hasn't quite
gotten that much courage yet), and that's a little scary. I think I
liked it better when they felt compelled to lie about him.

"The guy won the election and he is more pissed off now than he
was before."

The GOP should not have made him fight for it, that was petty of
them. Running against him was just typical of their
passive-aggressive obstructionism. They should laid supine, or
simply curled up in the fetal position and refused to even run a
candidate. Obama has so much love to give!, why do they
fight?...pure selfishness, that’s why...what a bunch of
assholes.

"I don't think they could possibly have run a weaker candidate
than Romney."

That’s not the fucking point...it disrupted the unity… the
healing process this country so desperately needed. It was
provocative and confrontational to run ANY candidate while the
president was re-adjusting the natio’s "ch'i"...dammit, the
wingnuts are thick,...why can't you just accept Obama, The One™ as
your lord and savior?

I don't think they could possibly have run a weaker
candidate than Romney.

Oh come on. Aside from *possibly* Rick Perry, none of the other
GOP primary candidates would have done better against BO. Gingrich
and Santorum had sky-high negatives among indies, a group went for
Romney over BO by a significant margin. Ron Paul would have been
obliterated after they put the newsletters and his comments about
legalizing heroin and cocaine on 24/7 loop in the MSM.

Rick Perry *may* have done better with Hispanics due to his
immigration dovishness. But he was also a mediocre speaker and
debater.

Perry, Gingrich, Santorum and even Cain or Bachman would have
done better against Obama because they would have taken the fight
to him and Romney was a central casting character that was
exactly the opponent that Obama wanted to run against.

He was such the perfect candidate for Obama that it makes me
wonder if the whole campaign was a set up. Especially after Tag
said that Romney "never wanted to be president.

Explain how this would have helped. I mean in reality, not
libertarian fantasy land where nobody wants free shit from the
govt.

Unexpectedly large Dem turnout is what handed BO the election.
MR won independents by a wide margin. Explain how Gingrich or
Santorum wins indies by the same amount AND depresses Dem turnout
by taking the fight to Obama.

Bachmann and Cain couldn't even handle the primary
spotlight...it would have been sad to see what the BO smear machine
would have done to them.

Cain would have appealed to some of those and pealed off black
support.

Seriously dude, even republicans didn't want Romney. He was
everybody's second or third choice based on the myth that he was
electable which he obviously wasn't. If he had run on the
strength of his ideas, instead of his financial strength and as the
establishment candidate, he would have been laughed out of the race
before Johnson was.

I do think Perry *may* have managed to do better, as I said
before, but none of the other candidates were viable.

If he had run on the strength of his ideas, instead of his
financial strength and as the establishment candidate, he would
have been laughed out of the race before Johnson was.

Unfortunately, that's true of most of the politicians we see
running for prez. The market has spoken. Americans don't want
ideas, they want a guy with good hair and "empathy". It used to be
they valued a guy who could "get things done" but that certainly
went out the door in 2012.

GJ isn't much of a visionary himself; he appears to be seeking
to become the Ralph Nader of the LP more than anything else.

"That does not mean that you don't have some real big
differences. The House Republican majority is made up mostly of
members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very
safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to
broad-based public opinion, because what they're really concerned
about is the opinions of their specific Republican
constituencies."

Unlike the Democrats in the House, who are in completely
ungerrymandered districts, and who care deeply about "broad based
public opinion" even if that would piss off their constituents.

I mean, if broad based public opinion showed that repealing gun
control laws enjoyed 50.1%+ support among all American voters,
surely Nancy Pelosi would fervently try to repeal said laws despite
what her constituents want.

That's quite a bizarre statement, since the election that gave
the GOP a majority in the House came 8 years after the last
redistricting. A lot of those safely Republican districts had
Democrat representatives, for some reason.

Obama is pissed that the GOP would dare oppose him, though they
haven't even done an adequate job at that since they took back the
House in 2010. What have they stopped that has hurt Obama's
reputation/record? Better question: what have they stopped or done
that has been good for liberty?

How exactly do these features—a threaded barrel, say, or a
grenade launcher without (already banned) grenades—make a gun "more
lethal"?

A threaded barrel allows a silencer or noise suppression device
to be attached. A grenade launcher -- well, that is obvious.

This ignores both the plain language of the First Amendment --
the "shall not infringe" part -- and the fact that most mass
killings have not involved killers particularly interested about
silence or about firing off grenades in close quarters that would
FN kill or maim said killer.

There isn't any popular support for this bill. The old hag keeps
saying that she has the support of the people. Where are these
'people' who support this?

I read comments for about an hour over at Huffpo and there is
very precious little support for it even on a far left site like
that and only from a few brain dead liberals who make such totally
uninformed, brain dead, statements like 'why does anyone need a AK
47 machine gun that fires hundreds of rounds in a second.' Rand
Paul is more popular at HuffPo than this stupid bill.

Also, the bill exempts herself and all other government
officials. This crap will never make it out of the Senate.

What they are going to do is try to push through what they will
call 'universal' background checks. Then once they pass that, at
some point, they will try to use it as a means to push for
registration of all guns.

When was the last time she was seriously contested by any
candidate in her district? Really, I don't know the answer to
this.

She is supposedly worth 70 million dollars and has only been in
public office all of her life.

I don't think our founders had it in mind that the duty of
serving the public by getting elected was supposed to mean making a
career of it and enriching yourself. This is exactly what is wrong
with this country, and it will only get worse until we put an end
to holding public office as a career.

"Polls show large majorities favor universal bckgd checks
of democrat policy makers don't want to risk another "gun issue"
brought before SCOUTUS, until after Scalia/Kennedy retire. Slim
majorities favor "assault weapon" and "high capacity magazine"
bans a plaintiff with standing, soundly kicking their ass...
and achieving a solid victory against anti-2A doctrine in an
increasingly pro-2A jurisprudence, though it's unclear if the
respondents really understand what those terms mean how
fucking stupid they are to keep pushing it too far."

The "regulated" means trained to hit the same mark. It comes
from adjusting double barreled weapons so that both barrels both
hit the same point of aim. It has nothing to do with passing lots
of laws and rules.

I agree. When the BoR was written, folks like Washington had
just finished the experience of turning a group of rag-tag
militiamen, previously notorious for their lack of morale and
discipline, into the professionalized Continental Army.

Baron von Stuben, the primary person responsible for training
the Continentals, wrote the
Revolutionary War Drill Manual in 1777. If you'll notice the
title on the first page, it reads "Regulations for the Order and
Discipline of the Troops of the United States". Based on this, the
evidence is very strong that the authors of the BoI used the phrase
"well-regulated" to mean "knowledgeable in the regulations of the
U.S. Army's manual of arms".

The most important bit is of course the last sentence. It is
usually assumed (especially by anti-gun types) that the "well
regulated militia" part is meant to convey that arms are meant to
be for state sanctioned militias, but this doesn't really add up
for me. It would be like saying "because its important to regulate
you, we can't regulate you". I wonder if it is meant in a
completely different way. We all know that a major component ( if
not the entire reason ) for the second is defense against tyranny.
Arms in the hands of the people is the regulation on the
militia/military. Is it possible that this is the true
interpretation or am I nuts?

The Second Amendment protection on the people's right to keep
and bear arms exists for the same reason the other 9 Amendments in
the Bill of Rights were put there: to protect the people from their
government.

But where are my manners? No government would ever oppress
anyone and certainly not a government with TOP MEN in it.

By describing the bill that way, reporter Jennifer
Steinhauer endorses Feinstein's fraudulent premise that "assault
weapons" are especially suited to mass murder or other kinds of gun
crime.

I was just wondering: if the only thing that "assault weapons"
are good for is killing large numbers of people (because they're
"weapons that only belong on the battlefield") then why is it okay
for policemen, politicians' security details, and celebrity
bodyguards to have them? None of those people have any legitimate
need to "mow down" large numbers of people. Does Feinstein et al
support a requirement that such people be restricted to
revolvers?

if the only thing that "assault weapons" are good for is
killing large numbers of people (because they're "weapons that only
belong on the battlefield") then why is it okay for policemen,
politicians' security details, and celebrity bodyguards to have
them?

A snippet for your perusal and amusement:

‘‘(4) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to—
1 ‘‘(A) the importation for, manufacture for, sale to, transfer to,
or possession by the United States or a department or agency of the
United States or a State or a department, agency, or political
subdivision of a State, or a sale or transfer to or possession by a
qualified law enforcement officer employed by the United States or
a department or agency of the United States or a State or a
department, agency, or political subdivision of a State, for
purposes of law enforcement (whether on or off duty), or a sale or
transfer to or possession by a campus law enforcement officer for
purposes of law enforcement (whether on or off duty);

‘‘(C) the possession, by an individual who is retired in good
standing from service with a law enforcement agency and is not
otherwise prohibited

Peasants like you can't handle the power of assaulty killy
pistolly grippy death weapons of doom. Best to leave them in the
hands of your betters.

OK, I read the article and got half way through the comments.
You are all wasting your time discussing the merits/demerits of the
technical aspects of this law. Nothing discussed here that I read
is relevant to the purpose of this law.

Get people used to the idea of guns being banned by banning some
but not all. Move incrementally to complete confiscation. Erase the
second amendment.

We should also notice and make the point that this law has
boatloads of incrementalism built in already.

By tacking on the ten round limit for magazines the
effectiveness of a huge majority of currently available handguns
have been reduced by some amount. Cuomo somewhat flashed their hand
by showing how that ten round limit could be simply ratcheted down
a little more.

One other small change to this law would be to remove the word
"detachable" so that any semi-auto firearm would be covered.

It's been 78 years since the NFA was passed. Tectonic plates
move faster than any "incremental movement" to confiscation
initiated by NFA. The firearms that ATF has added to the restricted
classes during that time represent a very small fraction of legal
firearms.

CA and NY aren't exactly bellwether states for how the country
will go. They were already heavily anti-gun to begin with. They
didn't need any grease on the slope.

I don't know what they're up to. It seems likely that they're
just trying to strike while the iron is hot. In DiFi's case this
bill is her legacy, a restoration of her previous "accomplishment".
I don't know if there's any devious master plan of incrementalism
behind it.

If there is, it's poorly thought out, because they're going for
the jugular right away. Universal background checks and 30 round
limits on magazine capacity probably would already have passed if
the left hadn't blown their ban-wad so early.

No dumbshit, she very clearly said that the other guns - not
covered by the AW ban - would be considered grandfathered. Since
the usual meaning of grandfathered doesn't apply, I take that as a
slip about intent. The bitch would disarm all the "little people"
in a heartbeat if she could.

You know what though, you really should move to California. I
think you'll really like Sacramento.

I woke up this morning and the wife had left the tv on. I woke
up to excerpts from Feinstein's press conference on this bill. She
was prattling on about how the aurora shooter had a magazine with
hundreds of rounds in it, enabling him to mow down so many
people.

We, and she know fucking well that his hi-cap magazine jammed,
causing him to switch to another gun.

Again, her sensible controls dont address the problem she
professes to be addressing, but it is a step in the incremental
march towards complete banning of all guns.

She is a lying cuntstain. If you dont know what she is up to,
what is it safe to assume she is up to?

I believe the reason why the NRA does not ever attempt to claim
how its efforts protect the rights of minorities to defend
themselves is because the left would come out of the woodwork like
a hive of cockroaches to scream them down. The democrats would
parade their divisions of minorities to shout counter claims to
anything the NRA might alude to doing in their favor so they (the
NRA) knows it is a losing point.

Emanuel is pushing two major financial institutions to
stop their financial backing of gun makers, unless those companies
support “commonsense reforms, including requiring criminal
background checks on all gun sales.”

"The references to "variants" and "altered facsimiles"
suggest that a gun can be deemed an "assault weapon" even if it is
not listed and does not have any forbidden "military-style
characteristics." Maybe that's one reason Feinstein tries to
reassure gun owners with her lengthy list of exempted
firearms."

Nah, Feinstein just doesn't want us to think we have any
rights--unless she says so.

We all know that the "assault weapons" ban has nothing to do
with anyone's safety and is merely a smoke screen and another step
toward the real goal of the elimination of citizen's rights to bear
arms. That may well be the general point of articles describing the
illogic and arbitrariness of the bill being put forward, but it
could be read that one is opposing the "assault weapons" ban
because it is not well thought out and one might support a revised
and more sensible one.

The thing is that it is not a compromise. A compromise is where
you give up something to settle an issue. This would never settle
an issue. This is a concession to fanatics. The next time there is
a big shooting, they will just want more.

Liberals are always talking about a conversation and compromise.
Okay. How about they get their idiotic band and in return,
Obamacare is repealed. That is a fair trade. And they do care about
children's safety right?

We propose a bill that defines the militia as every able bodied
adult. And regulates it by requiring that every member has to show
proof of owning an AR-15 or equivalent and has 20/hrs a year of
training/practice with it.

Which some might consider extreme. So I'm willing to
compromise and accept a mandatory two semester
gun safety and training course requirement to graduate
from high school.

While I have the utmost respect for Neal Peart as a musician and
will never deny the wisdom of the millions of drummers who love
him, he has never played a single thing that moved me. And I like
Rush. I just never particularly got into his playing. It never
seems to swing.

And you have to love Moon. Crazy fucker once passed out on stage
after taking a gorilla tranquilizer. You shouldn't laugh because he
life ended so unfortunately. But damn I laugh every time I think
about that. A gorilla tranquilizer? Who other than Keith Moon
thinks that is a good idea?

The one chick from Heart (the guitarist one) already whined
about how hard the jam at the end is gonna be because Rush is
difficult to play. She said something about not being able to learn
the songs with a couple of practices.

Chuck D of Public Enemy seems thrilled that Rush is going in
with him.

...according to Feinstein, turn a semiautomatic rifle with a
detachable magazine into an "assault weapon": a pistol grip or
forward grip, a grenade launcher or rocket launcher, a barrel
shroud, a threaded barrel, or a folding, telescoping, or detachable
stock...

Thank God my home-brewed $170-in-parts flamethrower has a wooden
stock. No shooting the theater up for me, no sirree, I'll
bu-bu-bu-burn the fucking building down instead. Still legal.

1) To reduce assault style rifle violence mandate that owners
must keep their weapons away from minors and disturbed individuals
in the home or face severe civil and criminal consequences with
mandatory prison time. Let your son go to school with your AR-10,
AR-15, high capacity assault styled weapon because you didn't lock
it away from him then lose your savings, your home and your
freedom. If you locked it up and he stole it, then you are not
culpable. But you run the risk to trust him or not. This would not
include handguns.

2) To reduce handgun related violence declare the Bloods, Crips,
MS13, Hells Angels, mafia, .... demonstrably violent gangs.... as
TERRORISTS. Treat them like enemy combatants. Use the NDAA 2012 and
extended Patriot Act against them. Sure we have too many people in
prison and yet our crime rates are down - go figure. Just being in
a demonstrably violent gang should make it illegal to own a gun.
When you are a member of a gang you are forswearing your primary
secular allegiance to the U.S.